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We just got back from Digital East 2013, a conference in Washington, D.C., and our brains and notes are brimming with digital marketing tips and ideas.

As we saw throughout the conference, email remains among the most effective and measurable digital marketing channels.

As one speaker put it, at any given conference, when a social media session and an email session start at the same time, that means there's the room where people care about conversions and ROI and measuring success. And then there's the social media room. (Just kidding. As we recently noted, social and email do and should work hand-in-hand.)

Which brings us to our first digital marketing tip from the show:

1 // Mix social and email to increase engagement. This isn't a new concept that we heard at a panel discussion, but it's one that is worth repeating. Email and social can work together to extend your reach and increase your audience’s engagement with your content.

Share your email campaigns to your social networks. And use platforms like Facebook to attract new email subscribers.

This was the talk throughout the conference. It’s still too early to know exactly how Hummingbird will change search marketing. Right now, the safest bet is to focus on creating website content that provides valuable information for humans looking for answers. Hummingbird was built to handle the coming boom in voice searches on mobile devices. That means the algorithm will be better suited to find answers to a question ("Where can I buy a widget?") versus the kind of keywords we're all used to typing in search: ("Widgets stores").

Over time, users will be retrained to avoid short simple keyword-ese type queries and just say what they want. Note that this evolution is not likely to be rapid, as Google still has a long way to go...

As a publisher, you should focus more attention on building pages for each of the different basic needs and intentions of the potential customers for your products and services. Start mapping those needs and use cases and design your site’s architecture, content, and use of language to address those.

In other words, know your audience. Doing this really well takes work, but it starts with knowing your potential customers or clients and why they might buy what you have to sell, and identifying the information they need first.

3 // For marketers, Google+ is the broccoli of social networks. Even if you don’t like it, it’s good for you(r SEO). This is a nice bit of wisdom that came from content marketing master Arnie Kuenn.

Google has put a lot into its would-be Facebook killer, and they’ve created a lot of reasons for marketers to use it. While Google isn’t saying so explicitly, it’s pretty clear that your website and content will get a boost in search results from Google+.

4 // Even if your business doesn’t like to or can’t discuss pricing on the website, you should still address pricing. If you have a high-end product, or one that requires a custom quote, you can still create effective content. Consider a blog post explaining why price isn’t the most important factor in choosing a product or why custom pricing means your customers will get the best product or service for their money.

Use Google's auto-suggest to find content marketing ideas.

5 // To generate content ideas, begin typing a phrase into Google.

The search engine's automatically-generated suggestions can point to a potential blog article, white paper or video.

For example, a local comic book store looking to generate online sales of rare back issues might type "rare comics" into Google. The suggestions, "rare comics from the 80’s," "rare comics to look for" and "rare comics price guide," might each make for compelling content that ranks in search and drives visitors to the store's online catalog.This is another great tip from Kuenn.

The best marketing tips come from your peers. What wisdom do you have to share? Drop it in the comments.